Page 71 of A Trade of Blood

“As if you could manage that,” said Fotia, “while locked up in a jail cell!”

Ippeas rolled his eyes and looked to me for support.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell Ana your suspicions, then we’ll go to the shrine. How fast can you get me there?”

“I can have you there in a flash, if we take my mount. But we’ll need two things—mint extract, and handkerchiefs.”

Chapter 19

I had thought myself horse-friendlyfor many years, and presumed I rode well. Yet as I mounted Fotia’s destrier—aslender, nervy, spotted creature who had made it very clear that he liked me not at all—and grasped my sister’s waist as we took off, I was instantly disabused of all these notions.

We did not ride. Rather, we plummeted, hurtling down the landscape, shrieking along the roads like a hawk in pursuit of a sparrow. We carved through the fields, hurtled through crossroads, until the old forest arose before us. Again, its slow emergence was disturbing: there was something in the way the white boles appeared at such perfect angles to one another, as if drawn by a mathematician expressing some arcane formulae.

We rode on, parallel to the trees. Then a crevice appeared in the unyielding face of the forest: a gap of about thirty span, carved through the wood. Before the gap stood a high arch, woven of fretvine, with mai-coils grown about it: an altered, vinelike form of mai-tree that grew the fruit that so attracted the luminescent worm. It was a hugely expensive organism, so it was quite strange to see one standing free and unprotected here before the dark, purple forest.

Yet I saw why it had been made quick enough. Even now, as the heat of the afternoon still lingered, some dozen or so folk were entering and exiting through the gap in the woods. They had the look of supplicants to them, worshippers come to make oaths before thefigures of their divinities—yet I noted they pressed cloths to their noses and mouths as they entered the shadows.

“So many pilgrims,” I murmured as we approached. “Do those cloths block out the scent of the trees?”

“Yes. Most folk use mint, which for some reason deadens the effect. That’s what we’ll use today—though as an engraver, you may have other scents available. But more, the path is wide, carved to keep the trees as far back as they can. That’s why I think your killer came this way. Less forest to go through.”

She tethered her destrier to a small post beside the shrine entrance (I was aghast to learn she’d named her mount “Poached Egg” because of the coloring of his spots, yet held my tongue), and we entered the forest together. Instantly, the air grew cool, and the light took on a queer, amethyst shade, as if we were walking through a pane of colored glass. It made me all the more uncomfortable: I’d walked in many jungles in the Empire, and none of them had been so silent, nor so deeply dark.

Then the familiar sense of worry threaded its way into my heart. I swallowed, slipped out a handkerchief, and doused it with mint extract. I did the same for Fotia, and together we pressed the scented kerchiefs to our noses. The warbling sense of anxiety did not vanish, but it did lessen, at least a little.

“Strange that people would bear discomfort,” I said, “all to see a statue.”

“Maybe. There’s much dread and dismay these days, though. What are gods and spirits for, if not to hang your despair upon them? That relief might be worth a little pain.”

“What can you tell me of this shrine?”

“Of Master Gaddar? I know it’s one of the oldest and grandest statues found. Most of the others were lost when the Apoths first burned the forests to make more field land. People glimpsed these enormous statues and structures emerging from the fire. Then they’d crackle, and crumble, and turn to dust. Even the work of the ancients couldn’t survive the heat of our blazes, it seems. Then people lookedat the remaining woods and saw figures there, poking from the treetops. Gaddar was the closest. Thus, we sought him out.”

I took note of that word—we—and glanced at her sidelong. “Do you keep to the Daljen yourself, Fo?”

She thought about it. “I’m…unsure how to answer. There seems to be a difference between gods and the Daljen—and the other Khanum, of course.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Gods require faith, a leap of reason. But you don’t need that for the Khanum, do you? We know they were real. Their artifacts and gifts are all about us.” She gestured to my face. “Even in you. True?”

I stayed silent, but this had struck close to something heavy in my mind: though the past hours had been mad, the maturation of my suffusions had never strayed far from my thoughts.

“The Khanum made the world for us,” she continued. “The Empire. It’s their gift to us, or so we’re told. But if they did this, and if they still expect worship, then they’re a bit shit, true? Not a very good gift-giver, if you demand something in return.”

“Velona Armenta called them shepherds,” I said. “That suggests there’s a path they expect us to walk.”

“It would also suggest we common folk were like animals to them. Which I don’t like the taste of at all.” She gazed at the amethyst leaves above. “Yet still…it seems wise to come here, and observe what they were. What we can be. Gives you…oh, I don’t know. A sense of scale. Or potential, or some such. If that’s worship, then yes, I suppose I’m a worshipper.”

“A wise thought,” I remarked.

“And yet you still doubt the wisdom of my union.”

I glowered for a long moment as we walked the path, irritated to have my thoughts returned to such earthly matters. Then I sighed. “No,” I conceded, my voice muffled through the kerchief. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

She looked at me, eyes wide. “Oh? Really?”

“Really.”